Research and Development: important source for product innovation also in East Germany
Jutta Günther, François Peglow
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 9,
2007
Abstract
The development and successful introduction of new products is a fundamental feature of a modern knowledge society. After completion of the retrieving technological renewals in East Germany, businesses in the newly-formed German states have to stand up to the competition for marketable concepts and ideas. In doing so, the structural particularities on the strength of transformation are still in force and besides, the embedding of East Germany between high-tech in the West and catching up countries in the East constitutes an additional challenge. This article outlines the innovation activities of East German companies and pursues in the framework of an multivariate analysis to follow up intra-corporate determining factors for product innovations The empirical analysis, employing the IAB establishment panel, shows an active share of innovation participation of companies belonging to the manufacturing industry in East Germany during the years 2002 and 2003. The proportion of companies with product innovation in the newly-formed German states even lies slightly above the reference value for West Germany. Especially companies with an own Research and Development (R&D) department are introducing new products twice as much as companies without an R&D division. The regression analysis proves that own R&D represents the strongest driving force for product innovations in regard to input factors. Moreover, continuing operational education can also be attested a positive impact on innovation activities and emphasizes concurrently the meaning of long-life learning. In reference to business specific characteristics, it stands out that foreign equity participation imposes a significant negative impact of on product innovations. This result, deserving further analysis, indicates the phenomenon of so-called subcontracting.
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Innovations as driving force of the knowledge society – concepts and contemporary theoretical approaches
Jutta Günther, Björn Jindra
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 9,
2007
Abstract
In response to the question what secures Europe’s future competitiveness, it is often in the context of “knowledge society” referred to location advantages for research and development (R&D), innovation and knowledge. Respective point of view is not only represented by decision makers of high-duty industrial countries, but also by so called catching up economies in Central and Eastern Europe as well as Asia. The present article deals against the background of current innovation theoretic approaches with the question of what indeed constitutes the abstract notion of the knowledge society, which actors play a role and how R&D and innovation are geographically distributed. Systemic approaches are outlined, which place emphasis on the relation among different knowledge generating actors, in particular among science and economy. In effort to elucidate the geographical distribution of R&D and innovation the authors refer to the regional economic theory, which constitute the reasons why such processes are marked by spatial concentration. Thereby, the hypotheses are competing in associating the spatial concentration with either sectoral specialization or diversification. The article shows the domination of multinational companies of research and development (R&D) in the private sector and that these businesses connect regional centers of innovations beyond national borders. Based on the theory of technological accumulation and internationalization of companies, the globalization of R&D and innovation processes are explained. Thereby, it must be recognized that a hierarchy of regional innovation systems is emerging in which the disparities are increasing both at home and abroad.
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Developing Collaborative Advantage: Preconditions and Restrictions for ‘Knowledge City’ Strategies in East Germany
Peter Franz
Institutions for Knowledge Generation and Knowledge Flows - Building Innovative Capabilities for Regions. Papers presented at the 10th Uddevalla Symposium 2007,
2007
Abstract
The trend of cities, serving as a location for universities and research institutes, to take into consideration new strategies utilizing this location factor for growth-oriented urban development can also be observed in Germany. An overview of the quantitative preconditions shows that many German cities dispose of favorite preconditions for such a knowledge city strategy. An analysis of the policy arena comes to the result that the political actors are confronted with the task of a complex multi-level-policy where networking skills become essential. A comparison with the policy conditions in the U.S. makes it quite clear that especially the German universities have the status of semi-autonomous actors complicating negotiating and coordinating activities between city and science representatives. First examples of deregulation show that these hurdles can be overcome in the future.
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Der Turbo-Rater
Ulrich Blum, Olaf Neubert
Rating-Software Welche Produkte nutzen wem?,
2007
Abstract
The Turbo-Rater was developed to give small and medium sized firm the ability to generate an fast and easy rating approximation themselves. During a 30 month research project a selection of firms in the german state of saxony were rated. All rating were evaluated in the project to develop a basis rating approach. The application is based on the Microsoft Excel plattform and aims to prepare firm, which did not participate in the research project, to prepaire themselves for the Changes following the Basel II accord.
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Aid and Economic Freedom: An Empirical Investigation Using the Heritage Index
Tobias Knedlik, Franz Kronthaler
Journal of Development Perspectives,
No. 3,
2007
Abstract
The paper explores the relationships between economic freedom on the one side and development aid and IMF credit as approximation for conditional aid on the other side. After a short review of current literature, the paper develops a simple panel regression model to evaluate the relationships. In contrast to previous research, our results allow the rejection of the hypothesis that IMF credit increases economic freedom and that development aid is not contributing to economic freedom. It could not be shown that countries can be pushed towards economic freedom by aid conditions. The paper discusses explanations of the empirical findings.
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Long-Term Growth Projections for Eastern Germany
Udo Ludwig
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 6,
2007
Abstract
Recent research comes to the conclusion that the eastern part of Germany not only heavily de-pends on its western counterpart, but that it essentially is dying a slow death. Arguments for this point of view reach from deindustrialisation and the lack of Headquarters of national and international Corporations to the rapidly aging society.
The study at hand assumes that economic development in a specific region does not only de-pend on the quantity and quality of its factors of production, but also on the overall conditions in the national economy a region is connected to. The analysis uses a framework in which the regional production factors are limited to the population and its development. Just as produc-tion, output is restricted to the value added of the region. Since data is only available for the ten years between 1995 - 2005, a panel econometric approach was chosen. For this purpose, the 97 spatial planning regions of Germany (Raumordnungsregionen) were divided into four groups according to their economic growth; slightly surprising, nine regions from Central Germany and Brandenburg fall into the top two groups.
The estimation results show that both economic growth in Germany as a whole as well as increases in the regional number of inhabitants positively influence regional value added. Fur-thermore, the impact of national growth is largest in the group with the highest regional value added and lowest in the group with the smallest regional output. On the other hand, lagged values of regional growth have the greatest impact in the low growth group and the smallest impact in the high growth group.
The main result of the study is that regional economic growth will not necessarily stop when the population is shrinking. After 2020, though, the growth rates of the gross domestic prod-uct will decrease. At the same time, the growth disparities between the different regions will not decline, a process aided by the demographic developments in Germany.
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Demographic development and its economic consequences
Joachim Ragnitz, Lutz Schneider
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 6,
2007
Abstract
Within the next decades, East Germany will continue to face strong demographic challenges. In addition to shrinking, the ageing of population and labour force will more and more affect the economic development of the new Länder. Against this background, the question rises whether the shift of workforce age structure will influence growth and innovation potential as well as structural change. The IWH recently has focused on this topic widely ignored by the research literature so far. On the basis of selected methods and data, the economic impact of workforce ageing was empirically evaluated. The first issue concerns the impact of age on productivity. Based on two separate empirical investigations, the conclusion can be drawn that above a certain stage, age diminishes productivity. But higher levels of experience might partly compensate for this reduction. Secondly, the innovation effects of ageing have been analyzed. Again, significant age effects arise. Employees at the age of about 40 years turn out to be the most innovative part of the workforce. Furthermore, the analysis shows that engineers are particularly subject to age effects. A third study sheds light on the challenging consequences of ageing on entrepreneurship potential. Hence, independently of the increasing problem of skill shortages, ageing itself will unfavourably affect growth, innovation and structural change. Though political options are limited due to the more or less fixed demographic trends, appropriate instruments regarding economic, family and education policy might lower the identified age effects.
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Industry Specialization, Diversity and the Efficiency of Regional Innovation Systems
Michael Fritsch, Viktor Slavtchev
Jena Economic Research Papers, Nr. 2007-018,
No. 18,
2007
Abstract
Innovation processes are characterized by a pronounced division of labor between actors. Two types of externality may arise from such interactions. On the one hand, a close location of actors affiliated to the same industry may stimulate innovation (MAR externalities). On the other hand, new ideas may be born by the exchange of heterogeneous and complementary knowledge between actors, which belong to different industries (Jacobs’ externalities). We test the impact of both MAR as well as Jacobs’ externalities on innovative performance at the regional level. The results suggest an inverted u-shaped relationship between regional specialization in certain industries and innovative performance. Further key determinants of the regional innovative performance are private sector R&D and university-industry collaboration.
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Lower Firm-Specific Productivity Levels in East Germany and East European Industrial Branches: The Role of Managerial Factors
Johannes Stephan
Germany Economic Performance: From Unification to Euroisation. Macmillan: Basingstoke,
2007
Abstract
This research assesses the firm-specific reasons for lower productivity levels between West and East German firms. The study is based on a unique data-base generated by field work in the four particularly important industrial sectors of machinery, furniture, cosmetics, and electrotechnics manufacturers and for the two East and West German regions, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. Our results suggest that apparently management in industrial firms in the East still lack the kind of market-orientation that proves to be at the centre of competitiveness in a market and price-governed system of the modern western-style economy.
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What Determines the Efficiency of Regional Innovation Systems?
Michael Fritsch, Viktor Slavtchev
Jena Economic Research Papers, Nr. 2007-006,
No. 6,
2007
Abstract
We assess the efficiency of regional innovation systems (RIS) in Germany by means of a knowledge production function. This function relates private sector research and development (R&D) activity in a region to the number of inventions that have been registered by residents of that region. Different measures and estimation approaches lead to rather similar assessments. We find that both spillovers within the private sector as well as from universities and other public research institutions have a positive effect on the efficiency of private sector R&D in the respective region. It is not the mere presence and size of public research institutions, but rather the intensity of interactions between private and public sector R&D that leads to high RIS efficiency. We find that relationship between the diversity of a regions’ industry structure and the efficiency of its innovation system is inversely u-shaped. Regions dominated by large establishments tend to be less efficient than regions with a lower average establishment size.
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